in defense of presentism- by david l. hull. history and theory, vol. 18, no. 1 (feb., 1979), pp....
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In Defense of PresentismAuthor(s): David L. HullSource: History and Theory, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Feb., 1979), pp. 1-15Published by: Wileyfor Wesleyan University
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8/10/2019 In Defense of Presentism- by David L. Hull. History and Theory, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Feb., 1979), pp. 1-15
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IN DEFENSE OF PRESENTISM
DAVID
L. HULL
L. Pearce Williams was so irate
over Joseph Agassi's book on Michael
Faraday
and the
section
on
Faraday
n
a book by
William Berkson that he
was moved
to entitle his review "Should Philosophers
Be Allowed
to Write
History?"' Williams
answers
the
question posed
in
the title
of his review
with
a
resounding "NO " He complains
that
philosophers
are prone
to
scandalous carelessness
in
transcribing
quotations
and to inaccurate de-
scriptions,
not to mention some highly questionable interpretations.They
are
more
interested
in
plausible connections between
ideas than
in actual
connections,
in what
they
would have
thought
in the circumstances
rather
than in what
the people concerned
actually thought. But worst
of
anl,
philosopherstend to use history of science to illustratetheir own views on
the natureof science, rather han
treating
t
inductively.
Popperianssuch as
Agassi and Berkson
view histories of science as good
places to introduce
conjectures
to be refuted
by
later workers. Imre Lakatos
has even
gone
so
far as
to
state
that
history
of
science
should
be
written
as
it
should
have
taken
place, given
a
particular
philosophy
of
science,
rather
than as it
actually
did
take
place: "One way
to
indicate discrepancies
between
his-
tory
and
its
rational
reconstruction
is to relate the internal history
in the
text, and indicate in the footnotes how actual history 'misbehaved'in the
light
of
its rational reconstruction.
2
Once Lakatos'
position
is translatedout of the
controversial
diom which
he
invariablyprefers,
it does not
sound so radicaland ahistorical. Even
so,
Williams
would
surely object. "History,"
according
to
Williams,
"is an
inductive science.'
I
happen
to agree
with
most of Williams'
historio-
graphical preferences.
I
too value
accurate quotations,
citations,
and de-
1. L. PearceWilliams,"ShouldPhilosophersBe Allowedto WriteHistory?",TheBritish
Journal for
the
Philosophy of Science
26
(1975),
241-253;
Joseph Agassi,
Faraday
as a
Natural
Philosopher (Chicago
and London, 1972);
William
Berkson, Fields
of Force
(London,
1974);Williams
has since temperedhis condemnation
of Berkson
but not Agassi, "Reply
to
Agassi and Berkson,"
The
British Journal for
the Philosophy of
Science
29 (1978), 252.
2.
Imre
Lakatos, "History of
Science
and Its Rational
Reconstruction" n
PSA
1970,
ed.
R.
Buck and R.
Cohen
(Dordrecht,
Holland, 1971),
107.
3.
Williams,
253.
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8/10/2019 In Defense of Presentism- by David L. Hull. History and Theory, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Feb., 1979), pp. 1-15
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2
DAVID L. HULL
scription? even when
I
myself fall short. However,
an inductivist
philoso-
phy of history is no less
a philosophy
of history because it is inductivist
and
widely shared by other
historians.
Williams is caught up in the
sort of
self-referential
snarl so dear to the hearts
of philosophers.
It is unlikely that
Williams
himself
gathered
his
principles
of historiography inductively
from
an extensive examination
of past histories
of science; rather he
brings his
preferences to his study
of past
science. His historical work
will be
influenced as surely by
his principles
of good historiography as the
works of
the Popperians are by theirs.
Williams
may have no general philosophy
of
science.
He certainly does
not recommend an inductivist
philosophy
to
physicists
and biologists.
But he does hold
an inductivist philosophy
of
history.
Should philosophers
be
allowed
to write history? Should historians?
In
spite
of
excesses
on both sides,
I am
forced
to answer both questions
with
a resounding "YES "
If
the philosophical
views which an historian
holds
have any
influence on
the history he
writes,
and
I cannot see
how such
influence
can be avoided, then philosophers
have
something to contribute
to history.
Conversely,
if
the subject
matter of philosophy
of science
is
science, then historians
surely have much to contribute to philosophy
of
science.
Furthermore,
for any philosopher attempting
to
develop
an
evolu-
tionary analysis of science, the temporal dimension to the units of concep-
tual evolution
becomes
crucial. Historians have
more to contribute to phi-
losophy than
just examples.
In conceptual evolution,
actual connections
between
ideas are what count,
not
"logical"
connections.4
In
general,
I
find the academic
divisions
characteristic of universities
all too
real.
Scien-
tists,
historians, sociologists,
and even philosophers
help to increase
our
understanding of science.
Each of
these fields has its own goals,
tech-
niques, and
standards.
Some consideration
must be
shown by people trying
to work in more than one field to the indigenous mores of the different
disciplines.
But sympathy
is also
called for. "Allowing"
or not
"allowing"
someone to write
history
is incompatible
with
free
inquiry.
I.
PRESENTISM
Present-day historians frequently criticize
their predecessors
for a variety
of
poor historiographic
practices,
especially
for a cluster of
interrelated
faults
commonly labeled "presentism."
In an early criticism
of what he
termed the Whig interpretation of history, Herbert Butterfield complained
of "the
tendency
in
many historians
to write
on
the side of Protestants
and
Whigs,
to
praise
revolutions
provided
they have been
successful,
to
em-
phasize certain
principles of progress
in the past
and to produce a story
4. Karl Popper, Objective Knowledge (Oxford, 1972); Stephen Toulmin, Human Under-
standing (Princeton,N.J., 1972);LarryLaudan,Progress and Its Problems (Berkeley, 1977).
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IN DEFENSE
OF PRESENTISM 3
which
is
the ratification
if
not
the
glorification
of the
present.'"5 Compara-
ble observations
apply
to
history
of
science.
For
example,
Stephen G.
Brush
points
out the
tendency
of
early
historians of science
to
"judge
every scientist by
the extent
of
his
contribution
toward the establishment of
modern theories. Such an
interpretation looks at the past in terms of pres-
ent ideas and
values, rather than
trying to understand the complete
con-
text
of
problems and preconceptions
with which the earlier
scientist himself
had to work."6
In this paper I intend to argue that certain forms of presentism are both
undesirable and
eliminable.
It is
certainly
a mistake to
think
that
by "gem-
mule" Darwin meant the same
thing that present-day geneticists mean by
"gene"
or to
criticize
him
for not
holding
the
modem
conception.
Nor
could
anything introduce greater distortion
into an historical narrative than
assuming
that the
agents
concerned viewed the
empirical
world the
way
we
do
today. However,
I
also intend
to
defend certain
forms of
presentism
in
history of science as necessary evils
and
still others as
perfectly legitimate.
I
realize that my defending
presentism
in
any form is likely to prove as
popular among historians as my
saying
a
few
words at a
meeting
of the
Parent-Teacher Association on behalf of child molesters, but
I
think that
the faults
of
presentism are not as transparent as they might at first appear.
For example, one of Thomas Kuhn's maxims for the "new internal his-
toriography"
is that
the "historian should set aside the science
that
he
knows. His science should be
learned from the textbooks and journals of
the
period
he
studies, and he should master these and the indigenous tradi-
tions
they display before grappling
with innovators whose discoveries or
inventions changed the direction of
scientific
advance."7
However, Kuhn
prefaces the preceding maxim with
the remark
that
the historian should set
aside
the science
that
he knows
only "insofar as possible" and
"it
is never
entirely so, nor could history be written if it were."8 Similarly, Murray G.
Murphey
notes that
historians "are
now calling for
a
historicist approach
which will seek
to understand the
past
in
its
own
terms,
not
in
terms of its
relation
to
later events which happen
to interest certain investigators."9 He
then
asks, "But what does it mean to
understand the past
in
its own terms?
It
means,
I
think, to seek for an
understanding of past phenomena
in
terms
of the
system
of
thought
and
action of which
they
were
a
part.
Of
course,
this
system is
in
part our construction, as is any theory, and it must usually
5.
Herbert
Butterfield, The
Whig Interpretation of
History
(London, 1931),
v.
6. Stephen G.
Brush,
"Should the History of
Science Be Rated
X?", Science 183 (1974),
1169.
7.
Thomas
Kuhn, "The History of
Science,"
International Encyclopedia of
the Social
Sciences 14
(1968), 76.
8. Idem.
9. Murray
G.
Murphey, Our
Knowledge of the
Historical Past (Indianapolis and
New
York,
1973), 120.
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4
DAVID L.
HULL
contain recently
discovered principles
of which the membersof past
soci-
eties were
unaware."10
If an historian
knows
no
science of
his
own period,
then
he certainly
cannot read it back into the past or pay undue attention to precursors.
In
practice,
of course,
such
abject ignorance
of
the present
is impossible,
even
for historians and
philosophers
of
science,
but what
of
Kuhn's remark
that
history could
not
be written
if it
were and
Murphey's
claim
that
under-
standingthe past
in its
own terms
is compatible
with referring o
principles
unknown at
the time?
Practicing
historians
mightwell
reply
that historiog-
raphers
like Kuhn
and Murphey
are manufacturing
problems
where
none
exist.
Historiansknow
whatthey
mean
when they
claim
to write
of the
past
in its own terms
even if historiographers
do
not.
On occasion
an historian
might
slip,
allowing his
narrative
to be
distorted
by
his own
perspective,
but
the
goal
is clear.
I
am
of
two minds on
this issue.
Many
of the points
which
I
make
in
this
paper
may
seem
too obvious
to
warrantmentioning.
One
way
to evaluate
a
philosophical
exposition
is the extent
to which
it accords
with the practices
and
intuitions of those
actually
working
n the field
under nvestigation.
The
more
frequently
my
reader exclaims,
"Of
course,
everyone
knows
that "
the better
I
like
it. But
philosophy
is also
prescriptive.
On occasion
the
reader is likely to be moved to exclaim, "Rubbish Only a philosopher
could
talk
such
nonsense."
In such circumstances,
the only thing
that
a
philosopher
can
do is to explain
his
position
as
best
he can
and to
show
how,
when one
thinks about
it,
it makes
admirably
good
sense.
In
this
paper
I
discuss
three
sorts
of
presentism,
reading present-day
meanings,
principles
of
reasoning,
and empirical
knowledge
back
into
earlier
periods.
I
argue
that
in
all three cases
knowledge
of
present-day
anguage,
logic,
and
science
is
necessary
not
only
for
investigating
the
past
but
also for
com-
municatingthe results of these investigations to the historian's contem-
poraries.
I
also
limit
myself
to
presentism
in
the
history
of
science.
Whether
comparable
observations
apply
with
equal
force to
history
at
large
must
remain,
for
the
purpose
of
this
paper,
a moot
question.
However,
I
happen to
think
that they
do.
II. RECONSTRUCTION
VERSUS
COMMUNICATION
A distinctionwhich shouldprove helpfulin the succeedingsections of this
paper
is between
the
methods
which
historians use
to find
out about
the
past
and the
means
which they
use
to
communicate
these
findings
to
their
contemporaries.
In
rare
cases
the historian can use current
scientific
theo-
ries to
infer the
occurrence
of
a
past
event;
for
instance,
the
dating
of
a
10.
Idem.
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IN DEFENSE
OF PRESENTISM
5
document
which
mentions
a
lunar eclipse of the
sun by means
of
current
data
and
the principles
of celestial
mechanics. In doing so, he
is hardly
contraveningany principles
of
historiography.
He is not claiming
that the
people at the time understood eclipses
the way
we do or possessed our
principles
of celestial mechanics. He
is simply using
the science available
to
him to infer the past.
The historian s lodged squarely
n
the present.
He
must use the
theories, methods, and
data available
to him in reconstructing
the
past
or use nothing
at all. Knowledge of the
present becomes even
more important
when the historian
turns from trying
to discover what
happened in the past to
writing up
his findings. Histories are
written not
only by people
and
about people but
also for people.
The people about
whom a history is written ived in the
past, but the
historianandhis readers
live
in
the
present. No purposeis served
by pretending
otherwise. The very
fact that the
historian shares knowledge
of the present
with his readers is
what allows him to communicate
successfully
with them. Any
historian
completely
ignorant
of
the
present
could
not
begin
to discover
what
hap-
pened
in
the
past.
After all,
his
evidence
is all
in
the present.
He would be
at an
equally
grave
disadvantage
n
writing history
for people living
in
the
present.
As Maurice Mandelbaum
has observed:
"a historianknows some-
thing about
the natureof his own society
through
having grown up
in
it,
and he will have learned through its culture something about its past;
furthermore,
n
any society
in
which
there is inquiry nto the past,
a histo-
rian
will
also know something
about societies other
than his
own,
and
about
their
pasts."
As erroneous
as the historian's
knowledge of the
present
may be,
as much distortion as it may introduce
nto his work,
it is
also
absolutely
necessary.
One
often
hears
that
history
must be rewritten
or
every generation,
as if
this observation
implied
that
each generation necessarily
reads
its own
prejudicesinto the period under investigation. As true (or false) as this
assumption
may be,
the need
to
rewrite history
has other
sources
as well.
Sometimes
later historians
have
access
to
data
which
was
unavailable
to
earlier
workers,
but
more importantlythey
will be
writing
for
a
different
audience
with
different
life experiences.
Communication
s a
relation.
If
either
partner
in
the relation
changes,
the relation
itself
changes.
The
two-member
relation of a
contemporary
historian
studying
the
past
be-
comes
a
three-member
relation when
the historian
attempts
to
explain
an
earlierperiod to people living in the present. Successive histories of the
same
period
may
differ markedly,
not because
the
period
under
investiga-
tion has
changed,
not because historians
necessarily
introduce
their own
concerns
and
prejudices
into their
work
(though
they may),
but
because
11.
Maurice
Mandelbaum,
The
Anatomy
of
Historical
Knowledge
(Baltimore
and
London,
1977),
113.
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6
DAVID L.
HULL
the readers of
these histories are different. A history of the Peloponnesian
War
written for
a
Victorian
schoolboy
must
differ
markedly
from one writ-
ten for students today. This point does not
depend on the audience
existing
at different times. Differences in culture is what matters. Contemporary
cultures can differ
as markedly from each other as those
that
exist
serially
in time.
III. THE
RELATIVITY
OF MEANING
Periodically philosophers have mused about how
nice
it
would be to have
an ideal
language
in
which everything could be said with absolute
preci-
sion. Historians, however, are presented with real languages in which the
same word can
mean very many things to
different people and these mean-
ings can change
through time. Although
natural languages are far from total
chaos,
they
also
pose serious problems
for
anyone
who
wishes
to under-
stand and
to be
understood. An historian will have been raised
in
a particu-
lar
subculture
speaking the variant of his language peculiar to that
subcul-
ture. If one
wishes to learn about a
contemporary subculture and its lan-
guage,
one
can always become part of
it
and
learn through participation. Of
course, it might be impossible to eliminate totally one's previous experi-
ence.
Some
immigrants always
view their
new
surroundings through
the
eyes
of
their
original homes,
but at
least there
are non-linguistic ways
of
reducing the
discrepancies. Such
non-linguistic experience is
all
but
un-
available to
the historian
studying
an
earlier
period. By
and
large
the best
he can
do
is
to
immerse himself in the
records currently available, and
the
most
informative records tend to be
linguistic. Whether the
historian's
subjects speak
a
foreign language or an
earlier version
of his
own
language,
the historian
begins by translating their utterances into his own idiom.
Little
by little,
however, he may develop the ability to
think in
the
language
of the
period
under
investigation.
But
how can
he
be sure
that
he
has
completely
annulled the distortions
which his own culture
and
language
are
likely
to
introduce into his
understanding? He
has
caught
himself often
enough
in
the
past.
How can he be sure
that
anachronisms
will not contin-
ue to
infect his
investigations?
One
message
of
recent
philosophy
for all
empirical investigators,
includ-
ing historians, is that absolute certainty is
not possible. The only thing that
one can
hope
to do is to
decrease the likelihood of
error,
and
there are
numerous ways
to do that. One is to read the works of other
historians,
especially
historians from
other cultures
and
times. Each historian
brings
with
him
his
own
set
of
biases,
but
it
is
much
easier
to detect
the
biases
of
others
than
one's own.
To the
extent
that the biases
of
different historians
are themselves
different, they tend to be mutually corrective.
Another
way
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IN DEFENSE OF PRESENTISM 7
to decrease the bias that one's own conceptual scheme can introduce
is
by
studying more than one area. I might be so indoctrinated in
contemporary
evolutionary theory that I dismiss nineteenth-century notions of saltative
evolution as supernatural. However, I might not be so totally committed to
the conceptual outlook of contemporary geology. Reading the
uni-
formitarian debate
in
geology might liberate my understanding of biological
evolution. That increase
in
understanding might in turn improve
my
origi-
nal understanding of geology. As "illogical" as the bootstrap effect may
be,
the resulting increase in understanding is nonetheless real.
The point I wish to emphasize is that one way of eliminating the biases
introduced into our understanding of past science by our knowledge of
current science is not by ignoring the fact that we do understand certain
areas of present-day science. If an historian knows anything about the
science of his day, and it is difficult to see how that can be avoided, he
would be wise to become very clear about his views so that he does not
allow them to color his reading of early science. For
example,
one
often
hears that Darwin held a "blending" theory of inheritance in contrast to
our
modern "particulate" theories, and that he thought
that the
variations
operative
in
the evolutionary process were "continuous"
rather
than
the
small,
discrete mutations which we now take to be the
ultimate source of
variation. Such claims are hopelessly misleading, not because Darwin's
views are being contrasted with modern ideas but because the two are
being confused. The historian has been taken
in
by a century
of scientific
propaganda.
Another problem posed by the relativity of meaning is that the historian
may well be able to neutralize his own preconceptions by long years
of
study,
but his
readers will not have had the
benefit of this same
extensive
experience.
After
eliminating as best he can
his own
misunderstandings
of
the past, the historian must make sure that his readers do not fall into the
same
traps. One might be tempted to try
to
avoid
the
difficulties posed by
translating
from
one language
into
another by using
the
language
of the
period
under
investigation; for instance, by writing about classical Greek
science
in
classical Greek. Such a maneuver has all the advantages
of
publishing
a
book as its own translation
or,
as
Lewis
Carroll remarked,
attempting
to
use a country as its own map:
"Whatdo you consider the largest map
that
would be
really
useful?"
"About
six
inches to
the
mile."
"Only
six inches "
exclaimed
Mein Herr. "We
very
soon
got
to six
yards
to
the
mile.
Then we
tried a
hundred
yards
to
the mile.
And
then
came
the
grandest
dea
of
all
We
actually
made
a
map
of the
country,
on
the scale
of a mile to the
mile "
"Have
you
used
it much?" I
enquired.
"It has
never
been
spread
out
yet,"
said Mein Herr: "The farmers
objected: they
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8 DAVID L. HULL
said
it
would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight So we now use the
country itself,
as
its own map, and
I
assure you it does
nearly as
well."112
I
have heard historians complain of calling anyone a biologist prior to
Lamarck's coining the term "biologie" in 1802.
I
can see the point of not
confusing the sort of thing which Aristotle did with
the activities of a
Lamarck, Darwin, or Pasteur, but I cannot see how
refusing to term Aris-
totle a "biologist" will help in the least. The gap between Pasteur and
Lamarck
is
even greater than that between Lamarck and
Aristotle. Current
usage departs even more radically from Lamarck's
original usage. To be
sure, Darwin
did
not use the term "evolution" in the Origin of Species. At
the time
it
referred roughly to what we now call ontogenetic development.
But
as
Michael
Ruse has stated quite forcefully, it
now means evolution,
and
"we today have a perfect right to use our own
language."
13
If use of
one's own language
in
writing about the past is
presentism, then presentism
is a necessary element in good historiography.
One
way
to
overcome the difficulties introduced
by the relativity
of
meaning is to use the closest contemporary term while warning the reader
of
the relevant differences. Another is to introduce
the term actually used
at
the time but with an appropriate explanation. The
point to notice is that
on both
strategies, the same explanation is given, and it
can be given only
in full knowledge of the differences and similarities between the culture
which is
being
written
about
and
the culture
being
written
for.
For
exam-
ple,
it
is difficult to see how one could get a present-day reader to under-
stand
Darwin's views on inheritance and evolution
without introducing
such
anachronistic terms as "genotype" and "phenotype." Genotypically,
Darwin's theory of inheritance was nearly as particulate as Mendel's
theory
and
even more particulate in certain
respects than current views.
After all, Darwin's gemmules were tiny, discrete
particles. On
Darwin's
view, phenotypic traits tended to blend because of the variable number and
kind
of
gemmules which he believed contributed to the formation of any
one
trait. Finally, Darwin neither said nor believed
that variation was
''continuous."
He thought that the variations operative
in
evolution
were
slight, small,
and
insensibly fine
in
contrast to sports. The notion
of
con-
tinuous variation was introduced much later
in
the
dispute
between
the
biometricians
and
the
Mendelians.
Writing history requires translation,
whether
the
languages
concerned
are two different contemporary languages, such as German and English, or
different
stages
in
the
development
of the same
language.
I can
read
Beowulf
with no
greater
ease
than
Buddenbrooks.
And,
as Sir Karl
Popper
has
argued,
translation
requires interpretation:
12. Charles
Lutwidge
Dodgson,
Sylvie
and Bruno
Concluded
in
The
Complete
Works
of
Lewis
Carroll
(London, 1939),
556-557.
13.
Michael
Ruse, The
Darwinian
Revolution
(Chicagoand
London,
forthcoming),preface.
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IN DEFENSE OF
PRESENTISM 9
Everybody
who
has done some
translating,
and
who
has
thoughtabout it, knows
that
there is no such thing as a grammaticallyorrect and also almost literaltransla-
tion of any interesting ext. Every good
translation s an interpretationof the
origi-
nal text; and I would even go so far as to
say that every good translationof a
nontrivialtext must be a theoreticalreconstruction.Thus it will even incorporate
bits of a commentary.Every good translation
must be, at the same time, close
and
free.
14
IV. THE RELATIVITY
OF REASONING
As
historians of philosophy have pointed out, our systems of logic, like
natural languages, have changed through the years. Certain sorts of argu-
ments which were prohibited in
Aristotelian logic are now considered to be
perfectly valid, and vice versa. Aristotle's philosophy of science was con-
demned by Bacon, and we
in
turn
condemn
his
extreme inductivism.
In a
review of Adolf Griinbaum's Philosophical Problems of Space and Time
(1973),
Arthur
Miller complains that
Griinbaum's "analysis is carried out
ahistorically,
that is, exclusively in terms of the philosophy of science circa
1973."15
There is an obvious
point
to Miller's
criticism.
If
Grinbaum
sup-
poses
that
the
scientists under
scrutiny
accepted
the same
philosophy
of
science which he himself
accepts,
then
he is mistaken.
If
Grunbaum
fails
to
mention differences in the principles of reasoning accepted in the period
under investigation
and
those prevalent today,
he is
omitting important
information. However,
Miller also seems
to
be
criticizing
Griinbaum
for
using present-day
standards
of
good reasoning
in
his own
analysis.
When
an
historian
begins
to
study
a
period,
should
he
himself use
the
methods
of
good reasoning accepted
at
the
time
under
investigation
or his
own? Put this
bluntly,
the answer is
painfully obvious.
In
the
initial
stages
of
inquiry, an historian cannot use
the standards accepted
at
the time
because he has no way of knowing what they are. More importantly, even
as
he
comes
to
understand these earlier principles of reasoning, he would
be
wrong
to
substitute them
for
his
own.
Doing
so would
mean replacing
principles which he and his fellow historians
take to be correct
with
those
which
we
now
take to be mistaken. More serious problems arise when
historians attempt to evaluate the reasoning used by earlier scientists.
Many
historians maintain
that such evaluations have no place
in
history.
Historians should
record what happened and nothing else.
Such historio-
graphic dicta are easier to enunciate than to defend. Present-day scientists
make
mistakes,
equivocate
on
the
meanings
of
terms,
claim that
certain
14. Karl
Popper, Unended
Quest (La
Salle, Ill.,
1976), 23.
15. ArthurI.
Miller,
"Review of
Adolf
Grunbaum,
PhilosophicalProblemsof
Space
and
Time'
(Dordrecht,
Holland, 1973),"
Isis
66 (1975),
590-594;Adolf
Grinbaum,
"Remarkson
Miller's
Review
of
'Philosophical
Problems
of
Space and
Time',"
Isis
68 (1977),
447-448;
ArthurI.
Miller, "Reply
by
ArthurI.
Miller,"
Isis 68
(1977),
449-450.
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10
DAVID
L.
HULL
conclusions
follow
from
their
premises
when
they do
not,
and
so on.
Their
contemporaries
eel
perfectly
free
to point
out
these mistakes.
However,
once science
slips
into the
past
and becomes
the
province
of the
historian,
all such
evaluations
must
suddenly
cease.
As always
there
is some
point
to
such prohibitions. Mutual
criticism
among scientists
living
at the
same time
results in
the
improvement
of
science.
For example,
there
was some point
to William Hopkins'
scolding
Darwin for
his sloppy
methodology.16
t might
have forced
Darwin to
im-
prove
his
practice
or explain
why
there
was nothing wrong
with it.
This
debate, of
course,
would
have
taken
place
in the
context of
nineteenth-
century
views on the
subject.
The
same
justification
does not apply to
later
criticisms
by
such
historians
as
Nordenskibld
and
Himmelfarb.17
There
is
no way
that
they
can
hope to improve
Darwin's methodology by their
criticisms.
Instead
the point
of their criticisms
seems
to be to cast doubt
on
contemporary
versions
of evolutionary
theory
by attacking
Darwin.
In
doing
so,
they are
using
(possibly
abusing)
history
in the
service of
a
scientific cause.
They are
masquerading
cience
as history.
However,
prohibitions
about
importing
present-day
principles
of
good
reasoning
into
the
history
of science
can be
carried
too
far.
For
example,
the
explicitly
stated philosophies
of science
in the first half
of
the
nineteenth century in Great Britainwere extremely empiricaland induc-
tivist.
In this
context,
many
of
Darwin's contemporaries
claimed
that
his
theory
was logically
unacceptable.
It
was one
mass
of
conjectures,
unsub-
stantiated
assertions,
and leaps
of
faith. Darwin
and his defenders
claimed
otherwise.
Can
an historian say
nothing
more? When Darwin's
practice
is
compared
to the
inductivist
standards
of a John Stuart
Mill,
it comes
up
wanting.
But
this is
only
part
of
the
story.
In
general,
the actual
practice
of
other
nineteenth-century
scientists
fared no
better. In
addition,
then
as
now, scientists had too muchsense to swallow methodologicalpronounce-
ments
without
a bit
of salt.
After studying
Mill,
Whewell,
Newton,
and
Darwin,
an
historian
s forced
to
conclude
that Mill
and Whewell
distorted
the
work of
these
scientists
to
fit
their own
purposes.
Does
proper
his-
toriographic
method
preclude
an historian
from
saying
so? I
hope
not.
The
problem
of self-reference
discussed
earlier
is
only
magnified
when
at
issue
are the
principles
of
good
reasoning.
We
are
not all
biologists
or
historians,
but
we are
all "reasoners."
No
matter what hat
an
investigator
16.
William
Hopkins,
"Physical
Theories
of the
Phenomena
f
Life,"
Fraser's
Magazine
61
(1860),
739-752,
62
(1860),
74-90;
reprinted
in
D.
L.
Hull,
Darwin
and His
Critics:
The
Reception
of Darwin's
Theory
of Evolution
by the
Scientific
Community
(Cambridge,
Mass.,
1973),
229-272.
17.
Erick
Nordenskibld,
The History
of Biology
[1920-1924],
ransl.
Leonard
Bucknall
Eyre
(New
York,
1928);
Gertrude
Himmelfarb,
Darwin
and
the Darwinian
Revolution
(London,
1959).
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IN
DEFENSE OF PRESENTISM
11
is wearingat any
one moment, there is one
hat
which
he can never
take off.
No matter,what else
an
historian may be
doing,
he is using certain princi-
ples
of
reasoning,
and
his use
implies
at least
tacit acceptance.
Although
divine revelation
was
once thought to be
a
legitimate
way
to
arrive
at
conclusions about
the
world
in
which
we
live,
no historian
today
would
justify
his
findings
n
these terms, any more than he would
use
the
"logic"
exhibited
in
the
writings of
a
mystic
in
his own investigations
of that
mys-
tic. However, the very fact that a contemporaryhistorianwould never
cite
Scripture
in
support
of
his
discussion
of
the debate over
evolutionary
theory places
him
squarely
in
the naturalistic camp, and naturalism
was
one of the chief
points
at issue. If
an
historian
actually
thinks his
principles
of
investigationare superiorto those of the people whom he is
studying,
if
his use of these principles mplies that he thinksthey are superior,what is
the
point of his not honestly saying so? Of course Griinbaumuses
philo-
sophic principlescirca 1973
n
his analysis. What other
principlesshould
he
use?
When
we turn
from
the
methods
by
which
an historian
attempts
to
dis-
cover what went on
in the
past
to his
communicating
hese
findings
to
his
contemporaries,
the
problem
of
discrepancies
between
the
principles
of
reasoning used in the past and today arises once again. If
an
historian
sets
out without comment a line of reasoning which on today's standards is
clearly
fallacious,
his
readers
have every right
to
feel puzzled.
Similarly,
presented
with
a scientist's failing to draw what seems
like
an
extremely
obvious
conclusion
from a set of
premises,
a
modern
reader
might
also be
justifiablypuzzled.
One
possible
source
of the
puzzlement
is
that the scien-
tists concerned
did not
share
with us our current
principles
of
logic.
For
example, many
of the
peculiarities
of
Aristotle's
laws
of
motion
make
sense
once
we
are
told that
Aristotle's
syllogistic logic
is
applicableonly
to exis-
tent things and the void is the absence of everything. Ofcourse, there is
always
the
possibility
that
the scientist
made a
mistake, given
the
standards
of his
day,
or
else
failed to see the
obvious. But
in
many
cases
the
question
arises
only because
of
differences
between our
principles
of
reasoning
and
those accepted in earlier periods. Having noticed such
discrepancies, the
historian
would
only increase confusion
if
all he
did was
pass over
them
without comment.
V. THE RELATIVITY OF TRUTH
One of the
chief
faults which modern historians find with
the histories
written
by
their
predecessors, especially those written by scientists emeriti,
is the tendency to read current empirical knowledge back
into the past,
describing,
for
example, the origin of vaccination as if
everyone concerned
understood the nature of viruses and contagious diseases.
Even worse is
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12
DAVID L. HULL
the condemnationof early scientists for not knowing what we know today.
However, sometimes present-day historians in their historiographical
asides sound as if they think that truth is relative. Throughout he history
of civilization, most people believed that the earth was flat. Today most
people believe
that it
is roughly spherical. Unlikely though it may be with
respect to this overly simple
example,
we too could be wrong. The problem
is how to describe this state of affairs in full recognitionof the fallibility of
human knowledge and the variabilityof human discourse.
One solution is
to
equate
truth with
belief. Saying
that
something
is
true
is equivalent on this view with saying that the people in question believed
it. On one extreme interpretation, uch claims imply that the earth changed
its shape as people changed their beliefs on the subject. The earth used to
be
flat,
and now
it
is
roughly spherical. The absurdityof
this
interpretation
can
be avoided
by refusing
to talk
about the shape
of
the earth
in
the first
place and to refer only to people's beliefs. People used to believe that the
earth was
flat; now they believe that
it
is roughly spherical.
The actual
shape of the earth is irrelevant to the historian. As attractive as this ma-
neuver may seem, it accomplishes nothing because the next question is
whether these people actually held the beliefs being
attributed to them.
Beliefs
about
the
shape
of the
earth
are
just
as much
part
of the
empirical
world as the shape of the earth
-
and no easier to discover.
Regardless
of what
they may say
on
the subject,
the actions
of
historians
belie
any
belief
in
the
relativity
of truth. Did Marx write to
Darwin
asking
to dedicate
Das Kapital
to him? No historian would
accept
as evi-
dence
in
this
dispute
the
unsupported
beliefs
of his fellow
historians,
re-
gardless
of how
widely or
how
deeply they were held.
At times historians
say things which
make
it
sound as
if
they
believed
that truth is relative. To
be sure, the beliefs
of
the people living
in
a
society
in
some
sense
"define
their reality." But reality has a way of forcing itself on us independentof
our beliefs. Whether
or not historians
are
right
to do
so, they
act
as if
there
were more
to
history
than
the beliefs
of
historians.
The
presentation
of
relevant
data and
cogent argumentsare
what
really count. Perhaps
histori-
cal
claims,
like
all
empirical claims,
will never
attain absolute
certainty.
Perhaps
the
relativity
of
meaning
will
always
interfere
with our
attempts
to
describe
the
empirical
world
precisely.
No doubt
our
understanding
of
rationality
will
continue
to
change through time. But there
is
a
difference
between belief and rationally justified belief. If historians are willing to
make
this
distinction
for themselves
-
and
they
are
-
they
should be
willing
to
make
it for
others as
well.
Because
early
historians of
science
unfairly lampooned
such
figures
as
Aristotle, Lamarck,
and
Gall
for
holding some
of
the views
they held,
modern historians
are
led
to
argue
that no
mention
should
be
made
of
discrepancies
between the
empirical
beliefs of
the
scientists under
investi-
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IN DEFENSE OF PRESENTISM
13
gation and our own.
One should set
out a scientist's ideas and leave it at
that. Once again,
there is considerable point to this maxim. In order to
understandAristotle'sphysiological system,
it is important
o know that he
thought that the brain cooled the blood. That we now take
this belief to be
mistaken is not very important.However,
this maxim itself
can be
carried
too far. We can
learn a great deal
about a scientist by the mistakes he
makes. For example,
Aristotle himself seems to have dissected
many of the
organisms which
he described. In general, he was a very
good observer.
When
his
descriptions depart
too
radically
from the
organisms
as we now
know
them,
the
historian has the right to suspect that
Aristotle did not
make
these
dissections but
is
passing
on second-hand information. Simi-
larly, we know today
that several of
the physical differences which Aris-
totle notes between
men and women do not exist. ThatAristotle
thought hey
did tells us something
of the attitudesin his society about
the sexes.
Historians
use
our knowledge of
the present
to
reconstruct
the
past.
They could not
do otherwise. All the evidence they have
available
to them
exists
in
the
present.
Historians are also well aware
that certain
features
of
the
world
in
which we live change through time.
The earth
has
cooled,
continents
have
drifted,
mountain
ranges
have
worn
away, jungles
have
come
and
gone,
species
have
become extinct,
human
societies
have arisen
and disappeared.One task of the historianis to chroniclethese changes.
But he
also
believes,
and must
believe
if
he is
to
reconstruct
he
past
on the
basis
of the
records surviving
to the present,
that
the
processes
producing
these changes
are sufficiently stable through time. Darwin,
for
example,
believed
that
certain
traits
could
be
explained only
in
terms
of
the
inheri-
tance
of
acquired characteristics.
That is no surprise.
The belief
was com-
mon at the time.
The evidence seemed to support t,
and
it
fit nicely
into his
theory
of
inheritance.
That we now take
such
beliefs
to be
mistaken is
irrelevant. However, what if Darwinhad mentionedthat snow is black?
Instead of mindlessly registering
that Darwin believed
that snow is
black,
the
historian would surely try
to
find out
if
Darwin
actually
held such
a
belief
and if
so, why.
Darwin was
not
prone
to make
such patent
observa-
tional mistakes. The source
of
the
historian's puzzlement
is
that
he
knows
that
snow
is white now and that we have every reason
to believe
that it was
just
as white
in
Darwin's
day
-
regardless
of the beliefs
of the
people
at
the time. Similarly, Christianshave
traditionallymaintained
hat
Mary was
a virginwhen she gave birthto Jesus. The historianmust surely take note
of
these
beliefs,
but he is also
warranted
n
looking
for the
biological
father.
He has
every right
to
believe
that
virgin
births were no
more common
two
thousand
years
ago
than
they
are today.18
18.
In
his
review of
Joe
D.
Burchfield's Lord Kelvin
and the
Age of the Earth
(London and
Basingstoke,
1975),
Edward
Bullard
discusses
the story
which
Burchfield
ells
and then
con-
cludes:
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8/10/2019 In Defense of Presentism- by David L. Hull. History and Theory, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Feb., 1979), pp. 1-15
15/16
14
DAVID L. HULL
Historians use
their knowledge of the present
in
reconstructing he past.
They
also use
it in
writing for readers who are likely to
share
this knowl-
edge
with them. A
modem
reader is
just as likely
to be
shocked
at
Dar-
win's claiming that snow is
black as the historian.
Some explanation is
surely
called for. Present-day
readersare likely to view a belief in Lamarck-
ian
modes of inheritance as not only mistaken but also
unscientific. Mis-
taken,
though justified, it surely was. Unscientific it
was not. Which of
Darwin's beliefs the historian decides to
expand upon
in
this
connection
is
not
determinedby which turned
out to be correct and which faulty, given
current
knowledge,
but
by which
are
likely
to
puzzle
the
modern reader
and which
not. Because the
only science
a
present-day reader
is
likely to
know
is
the science contained
in
contemporary
extbooks,
the
historian is
well advised to pay attention to
similarities and differences
between this
science and the science under
discussion. For example, the first time that
a
person
reads
Darwin
commenting
on
three-to-one
ratios
in
inheritance,he
is likely
to jump to the
conclusion that Darwinhadjust stumbledon the key
to
Mendelian genetics. Why
this conclusion is mistaken takes some ex-
plaining.
Ignoring he likelihood
that this
is exactly
the sort of mistake
that
someone
knowing modem
Mendeliangenetics is prone
to make
can hardly
be
good
historiography.19
VI.
CONCLUSION
In
this
paper
I
have been
concerned to
show
that
knowledge of the present
is absolutely crucial for the
historian, both
in
reconstructing he past and in
In spite
of
the careful
account of all these things some readers may feel a little
de-
prived. An historianmust
study the past in its own terms. He must not ask 'What
was
Henry VIII's attitude to
women's lib?'. This viewpoint has been adopted also by
histo-
rians of science, and in
some degree, is clearly necessary. But should one go the whole
way? The author of this book consistently refrains rom saying that anything s rightor
wrong, silly or unjustified.
f Kelvin assumes that the Earth was initiallyat 1,500?C,
the
author
reportsthat he
said it and that it was a more or
less arbitrary hoice, but he does
not add that it matters very little what figure is taken.
On the other hand no one would
guess
that
Kelvin's assumption
of the
absence
of
convection
within the Earth
was crucial
and that
the attacks
on it were well based. The history of science
is
different
rom other
kinds
of history; there
is the additional act that some things are correct
and some wrong
sub specie aeternitatis.
I
share
Bullard's
eelings
of
deprivation,
but I do not think
that these feelings are limited ust
to readers
of histories
of
science.
19. The major sort of relativity which I do not discuss in this paper is the relativityof
morals. Strangelyenough,
historianswho would never dream of criticizing
an
early scientist
for not having present-day conceptions, for failing to adhere
to those principles
of
good
reasoningwhich we now hold,
or for makingwhat we take to be factual errors feel perfectly
free to sneer at early scientists
for not living up to the historian's own moral standards.
Denigrating
Darwin for
believing
that a previous insemination
of a mare
can
affect
later
pregnancies
s
bad historiography; ondemning
him
as
a racist
is
somehow perfectly
all
right.
But Darwin's attitudes on
racial
matters
were
as
"enlightened"
by nineteenth-century
tan-
dards
as were his ideas on heredity.
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8/10/2019 In Defense of Presentism- by David L. Hull. History and Theory, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Feb., 1979), pp. 1-15
16/16
IN DEFENSE OF PRESENTISM 15
explaining it to his readers. From his position in the present, the historian
must use all evidence and tools available to him in reconstructing the past
even
if
this knowledge was unavailable to the people
in
the period under
investigation. He then must communicate these findings to his contem-
poraries.
Even the most
compulsive historian is likely
to
know more about
his own age than the one he is studying. His reader is sure to. Warnings
about "presentism"
are
designed
to
prevent our knowledge
of the
present
from distorting
our
knowledge
of the
past. Perhaps
the
possible
abuses
of
prohibitions against presentism detailed in this paper are exaggerated. I am
afraid they are not. The two commonest responses which
I
have received
to
this
paper
are
that
no
historian has ever held the
historiographic princi-
ples which
I
discuss
-
they
are straw
men
-
and
that
every right-thinking
historian does.
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee